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This blog was started as a public service to help keep folks informed about things going on in our world. That “world” started out as Greater Pottstown but expanded to include the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (and sometimes our next door neighbors New Jersey and Delaware).

WE ARE 100% NON-PROFIT. With more and more newspapers requiring paid subscriptions or offering only restricted access it has become increasing difficult to share information. We have no budget, we have no advertisers or sponsors to offset these costs. Therefore, effective immediately, we are only going to publish press releases, event flyers or original content.

As much as this saddens us, news access is going to continue to shrink without paid subscriptions. This is a hobby, not a business.

We will continue to share news on our Facebook page because “sharing” information that way is kosher and free for now, apparently. Our page can be found by clicking this link if you aren’t familiar with it

Editor’s note: This is a very good article about how to revitalize an urban walkable community. Maybe some of the Pottstown leadership might take 5 minutes and read something constructive on how to bring about revitalization. A simple phone call to either of these communities might provide invaluable information. People like to share their successes!

For years, planners and residents have been trying to understand why Haddon Township isn’t more like Collingswood, the millennial enclave that is South Jersey’s answer to Fairmount and East Passyunk. Situated side by side in Camden County, the two towns are old-school commuter suburbs, with small house lots, good sidewalks, and great transit to Center City. They even share a main street, Haddon Avenue, which runs through the center of both.

The pair are models for what smart-growth advocates call walkable urbanism, but Collingswood’s downtown is by far the buzzier place. You can stroll for blocks along its part of Haddon Avenue, poking into vintage stores, stopping for coffee, enjoying an al fresco meal at a BYOB. In the evenings, it’s common to see pedestrians toting a wine caddy or pushing a stroller.

In Haddon’s downtown, known as Westmont, you might not see any pedestrians for blocks.

Westmont is a frustrating example of potential unrealized. Like Collingswood, it boasts a burgeoning restaurant scene and a weekly farmers’ market. It has some great blocks filled with early 20th-century storefronts that would look at home on Passyunk Avenue. But those destinations are just lonely islands in a stream of dreary strip malls and parking lots.

PATCO finally rolled out the first of its refurbished rail cars Thursday morning, with local officials promising the $194 million overhaul will mean new levels of comfort, safety and reliability for commuters who travel between South Jersey and Center City.

The rebuilt cars, with new interiors, electronics and heating systems, are more than a year late returning to service from a factory in Hornell, N.Y., because of persistent problems fine-tuning an automatic signal system that gives operating instructions to the trains.

All systems, including new visual and audio station announcements, appeared to work flawlessly Thursday on the first train’s inaugural trip from Woodcrest station in Cherry Hill to the subway stop at 8th and Market streets in Center City.

After perusing a few boutique stores and getting her hair done at Rizzieri Salon & Spa at Moorestown Mall, Jamie McCulloh-Martin decided to go for dinner at Osteria a few doors down.

“I’ve been here more in the last 1½ years since [Osteria] opened than in all of my 22 years living in Moorestown,” said McCulloh-Martin, 50, owner of a physical therapy chain, who ate outdoors with her administrative director, Kelly Casio. “The mall is really changing, and for the better.”

In the new mall world order, you can taste Jose Garces’ tacos at Moorestown Mall, Bobby Flay’s burgers at Cherry Hill Mall, and filet mignon at Morton’s – the Steakhouse at King of Prussia Mall.

The mall and high-end restaurants have struck up a marriage that’s holding on to shoppers longer and generating a better return for powerhouse owners such as Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) and Simon Property Group.

President Obama is expected to speak at 3 p.m. in Camden, where administration officials say he will praise the work of the Camden County Police Department in establishing better ties with the community.

Camden is a “good example of a community that’s putting innovative strategies in place to advance community policing,” Cecilia Muñoz, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said in a conference call with reporters Sunday.

Obama chose to visit Camden because of its emphasis on community policing to reduce crime, Muñoz said. She noted that Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson had testified at one of the task force’s hearings in February.

Camden also is participating in Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative, which the president launched last year to address persistent opportunity gaps for boys and young men of color.

A New Jersey teacher has been suspended for reportedly having her third-grade students write “get-well” letters to convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

On Sunday, Marylin Zuniga posted a tweet about dropping off the letters to Johanna Fernandez.

“My 3rd graders wrote to Mumia to lift up his spirits as he is ill. #freemumia,” the teacher at Forest Street School in Orange, New Jersey, tweeted on her since-deactivated account.

Fernandez is an assistant professor in the Department of Black and Latino Studies at Baruch College in New York City. She also is part of Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal, an organization that advocates for the inmate’s innocence.

Power was cut off around 2:20 after its supplier, ACR Energy, made good on multiple threats to new owner Glenn Straub and shut off the lights to the 6.2 million-square-foot, 47-story Boardwalk property.

“Everything is out, it’s a dead building,” a security guard said after the plug was pulled.

It was a hard-to-fathom turn of events even for the endlessly twisty saga of the Revel, once predicted to be an Atlantic City game-changer and now standing tall, dark, and empty in the unpredictable hands of Straub, a maverick Florida businessman and polo player.

Discount grocer Aldi said Friday that it will reopen 30 of the 66 former Bottom Dollar stores it took over in Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and northeast Ohio after the previous owner, the Delhaize Group, shut Bottom Dollar last year.

Five ex-Bottom Dollar stores in Philadelphia and 14 in the suburbs will reopen. Four Philadelphia stores will stay shut, along with 13 in the suburbs.

Aldi, an Illinois-based U.S. arm of Germany’s Albrecht family grocery conglomerate, said in 2013 it planned a $3 billion expansion, and Friday’s announcement is part of that effort.

The heated exchange between a proud mayor with a football career and an elderly resident who wanted to question town policies sorely needed a referee that bitter December night.

For four tense minutes, Evesham Township Mayor Randy Brown drowned out Kenneth Mills, 81, after Mills asked about a tax abatement on a property and attempted to tell Brown to calm down. In a booming voice, Brown, the kicking coach for the Baltimore Ravens, told Mills that he had been overwhelmingly reelected in November and that “65 percent of the people who came out love what I do.” He barely addressed the tax abatement.

“You’re acting like a jerk,” Mills said as he sat down, sounding exasperated.

The following month, Brown made it clear that future council meetings would be different. Residents would not be permitted to question council members during public meetings, he said. Instead, they could “make comments only.”

Just how wary lenders are of Atlantic City’s credit is evident in their recent demands as the city tries to refinance $12.8 million in debt due Tuesday.

Three lenders expressed interest in making the loan, but one wanted to charge 12 percent interest. Another was willing to lend at a lower rate but wanted a state guarantee, which the state rejected, Mayor Don Guardian said Saturday.

Talks continued with a third prospective lender, and a decision is expected Monday, Guardian said, adding: “We are prepared to make the payment regardless.”

The financial turmoil in Atlantic City, half of whose gambling revenue has disappeared since 2006, has intensified in the last year, as four of 12 casinos have closed, and 8,000 people have lost their jobs.

Over the next two to three months, officials in Burlington Township will be getting architectural and civil engineering drawings of what the new Marketplace at Burlington – formerly Burlington Center Mall – will look like, as well as a count of the traffic it is hoped it will generate.

By mid-spring of next year, owner Moonbeam Capital Investments L.L.C. of Las Vegas says, groundbreaking will begin to convert the underperforming mall into a must-see destination off Exit 47A of I-295 for shopping, dining, and entertainment.

If all goes as planned, the $230 million-plus phased conversion will also include manicured green spaces with benches and fountains that seamlessly tie a traditional mall with an open-air town center.

The full build-out is expected to take from two to three years and will be done in stages. The mall will stay open the entire time.

The Philadelphia area is preparing for another round of snow to hit during the night.

The snowfall would be the second the area has seen this week, an unusual occurrence in a winter that’s been nearly snow-free thus far.

The biggest threat appears to be hazardous driving conditions overnight, from around midnight through around 6 a.m. Saturday, with snow, ice and a wintry mix threatening to hit much of eastern Pennsylvania and non-coastal parts of New Jersey.

Transportation officials were gearing up for plowing and salting operations. PennDot was warning motorists that clearing roads during a storm was a time-consuming operation, and drivers should use caution.

At least one Phillipsburg official is optimistic this will be the year the town finds a redeveloper for the former Ingersoll-Rand site, which has sat mostly unused for years.

John Lynn, who succeeds Todd Tersigni as town council president, said officials will be working diligently during the next three months to secure a developer for the more than 250 acres of property the town bought in December 2012.

“We have some things in the works and our goal is to have them come to fruition this year. We have a lot of interest, and we have a lot of options,” Lynn said after the meeting.

A bankruptcy judge in Camden said Monday that she would approve the sale of Revel AC Inc. for $95.4 million to Florida investor Glenn Straub, rejecting Straub’s effort to pay only $87 million.

The next step is a sale order, which must be signed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gloria M. Burns, but negotiations over the terms of that order – particularly how concerns of tenants and others will be handled – bogged down during a break.

Burns asked attorneys for Revel, Straub, and other parties to work on a sales order to be filed this week, in time to be considered at a Revel hearing scheduled for Thursday.

Once a sale order is signed, the sale of the property, built at a cost of $2.4 billion, is expected to close within 30 days, according to the asset purchase agreement.